Maintaining Purchasing Data in Mat. Master Record
Use
Material master records are created when the MM module is first installed. Thereafter, the departments using the material master database are responsible for keeping the information it contains up to date.
Material master records may be created and changed either centrally or by individual departments. In the latter case, for example, the Purchasing Department will be responsible for continually updating purchasing data and, in the same way, Sales will be responsible for maintaining sales and distribution data.
This section shows how the purchasing data in a material master record is entered and changed.
What is a Material Type?
The material type identifies the characteristics of a material that are important with regard to Accounting and Inventory Management. A material is assigned a type when you create the material master record.
"Raw materials" and "finished products" are examples of material types. In the standard MM module, the material type for the former (ROH) denotes an externally procured (bought-in) material, whereas the material type for the latter (FERT) indicates that the relevant material is produced in-house.
The material type determines the accounts to be debited or credited when a material enters or leaves the stores/warehouse, or is used or consumed by a user department. It also determines whether numbers for materials are assigned by the system (internally) or by the user (externally).
For more information on material types, please refer to the section
Material Types in the documentation LO Material Master.Configurable materials constitute a "special" material type. Configurable materials of the material type KMAT can represent materials that are liable to occur in different variants. For example, an automobile manufacturer can offer a certain car with different finishes, colors, upholstery, and engines.
For an example of configurable materials in Purchasing, refer to the section
Example: Configurable Materials in Purchasing.Activities
Displaying a Material Master Record
You can also display a material master record from the item overview of any purchasing document. To do so, choose Environment ® Material from the menu bar.
Displaying Stock Levels
There are two ways to display the stock level of a given material:
To view the stock level, choose Environment
While displaying purchase orders, outline agreements, RFQs, or quotations, choose Environment
Creating or Maintaining a Material Master Record (Purchasing)
This section explains how to enter purchasing data in a material master record.
When Do You Create or Maintain a Material Master Record?
You have to create or maintain a material master record if the material to be procured:
To determine whether or not a material has a master record, try to display the material using the Possible entries facility. In doing so, proceed as described under Displaying a Material Master Record.
Prerequisites
Before creating a material master record, you need the following information:
Procedure
To create or maintain a material master record, proceed as follows:
Enter the material number only if your enterprise uses external number assignment. Otherwise, the system assigns a number to the material automatically.
If the material master record already exists, enter the material number and press ENTER .
The Select view box appears. It contains a list of possible user departments.
If a similar material master record already exists, you can use it as a reference when creating a new one. To do this, enter the number of the reference material. A copy of the reference material master record will be displayed. Here, you can make any desired changes.
The short text (short description) is used to identify the material on all purchasing documents as well as documents from other departments. Therefore, you should enter a description that is also meaningful to other departments.
Order unit
Make an entry here only if the order unit differs from the base unit of measure. If you specify a value in this field, you must also supply the factor for conversions from the order unit into the base unit.
Purchasing group
In this field, specify the buyer or group of buyers responsible for procuring the material.
Purchasing value key
Key defining various values for purchasing functions, such as reminder intervals and tolerances. The reminder intervals are specified in days and indicate after which periods the first, second, and third reminders/urging letters are to be sent to a vendor with regard to outstanding quotations, outstanding order acknowledgments, or overdue deliveries. The system generates the reminders or urging letters (expediters) automatically.
The underage and overage tolerance limits give the percentage of under- and overdelivery allowed for the material by your firm.
Make relevant specifications under Basic data and Foreign trade: Import.
As part of the purchasing value key, you can also set the parameters Minimum delivery quantity and Standardizing value for delivery date variance on a material-specific basis. These values are used by the MM Vendor Evaluation functionality.
Alternative Units of Measure
In addition to the base unit of measure, used by the system in managing stocks and carrying out all its computations, other departments can use their own units of measure.
All units of measure other than the base unit are known as alternative units. The following are examples of alternative units of measure:
Order unit
Order price unit
Unit in which the vendor invoices you. The order price unit is defined in the purchase order or in the purchasing info record. If you have defined an order price unit in the PO, the goods receipt will be recorded in both the order unit and the order price unit.
Sales unit
Unit of issue
Unit of measure in which a material is issued from the warehouse/stores. You can use this unit of measure in conjunction with goods issues and physical inventory activities.
Any quantities that you specify in a unit of measure other than the base unit are automatically converted into the base unit by the system. To make this possible, you must enter the ratio for conversions between alternative units and the base unit (the conversion factor) in the material master record. You can enter this information when specifying the alternative unit of measure.
Variable Units of Measure
In the material master record, you can specify that the material can be procured in a unit of measure that differs from the order unit.
If the material can be ordered in more than one unit of measure, enter
1 in the Variable order unit field.This setting is then adopted in the purchasing info record and allows you to enter an order unit that differs from the one in the purchasing info record when creating or maintaining a purchase order or source list.
If you do not allow a variable order unit in the material master record, you must use the order unit from the material master record.
If you wish to specify a different order unit for a purchase requisition, you must assign a source with a different order unit to the requisition.
Changing a Material Master Record
When you change a material master record, the system records the change, the name of the user, and the time of the change. This provides an audit trail of changes to material master records.